Nothing like leaving the house when it is still dark outside. Even without ratties to show, we still needed to arrive before 10:00 a.m. to set up our table and volunteer where needed. Except for the lighting (which made it difficult to see colors of a few ratties) Stokes Auction, the venue, was great!

My girls volunteered to help check people in along with sell raffle tickets. This kept them busy for almost the whole time. I was able to float a bit and also sell many of our homemade toys, hammocks and snugglies. I even was able to help check in ratties into the show. Even though we didn't bring ratties, they let us tell the miracle story of lil CRUS Ivy. Losing both her parents and most of her brothers to the fire and how in just one month she has bounced back, growing well and breathing fine. Living a diva life in our Girls Sorority. We won a ribbon for the story (audience clapping) tying for 1st, but seriously the best one goes to BBRR and their lil guys that were found in a box on the side of the road. How people can just abandon critters is beyond me.

This show had a lot of dwarf ratties. Oh those HUGE eyes on such a little head were too cute. We also saw our first Goldens from Canada. They are like the color of a soft yellow lab with 'burnt' highlights like someone toasted their ears and points. I also learned the difference between a Harley rat and what they are trying to standardize, the HarVel. So many precious ratties at the show!

Here is a link to the write up for the show in the local paper - guess who won the Rat Crap Shoot!?! We also bought 12 raffle tickets and won 3 prizes - fun fun fun! Overall, my favorite time was talking with the 'rat owners to be' along with a few that had just adopted sweet furbabies from BFRR. After the show there was a RatsPacNW meeting where they discussed new standards for the show along with plans for the future shows. My daughters ALMOST lasted the whole time but we had to leave right before they closed business. 6 a.m. - 7:30 p.m. is one long day that deserved a yummy dinner and swimming in the hotel pool.

The next day we visited the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium. What a fun treat and a great way to spend a Sunday morning/afternoon. We also were able to see their last production of the year ​Indiana Bones and the Golden Treasure.They even had ratties run across the high bridge! At the end of the show the zoo volunteers brought out animals to see. Of course we didn't go pet the chicken or the dog we headed to pet their adorable Berkshire Agouti 1.5 year old girl.

Make sure if you are going to visit the show, you do not stop at a pet store 3 hours before.

Our third show is tomorrow. We are looking forward to seeing old friends and making more!

We have been busy making fun hammocks, snugglies and rattie toys. We will have our usual variety of fun stuff for sale along with a few new things. We have finally set up with Square so we can take credit cards this year!

The one thing we are a little disappointed about, is the fact that we will not be bringing our ratties to the show like planned. For those of you that don't know, we have taken in a few ratties from a fire 4 weeks ago. A couple are still showing a few signs of breathing struggles. The wacky weather of course doesn't help. The older ratties will most likely deal with them for the rest of their lives due to the amount of smoke and toxins they inhaled. A juvenile, OCRA Pongo who came back to us, seems to have on and off bouts of funny sounds but is still active and gaining weight wonderfully. The CRUS Phantom of the Opera Litter is doing great. Mainly because their mama, CRUS Gizzy, buried them during fire, filtering out much of the smoke. Of course, we also have our 2016 Fall Astronomy x2 Litter due this weekend. One busy mischief- ever wonder where we got the name Our Crazy Rat Adventure? - hahaAll of this means we do not want to take a chance of bringing anything home with 'the fire ratties or new babies' in our home. No matter how good a quarantine, mistakes can happen and we do not want to take the chance. Of course, show guidelines state NO POSSIBLE illness should be brought to the show. There is a thorough health check at the beginning of the show. All of this is on your honor, that you will not only bring healthy rats, but also the rats you bring have not shared the same airspace will ill rats at home. Our club is so good at monitoring it all! Unfortunately, no matter how careful they are, viruses can even be transmitted from a visitor stopping at pet store right before going to a show or having a rattie at home that is fighting serious illness. Better safe than sorry this time around since our home is full of so many vulnerable ratties right now.

We will still have a blast and hope to see you there!!!! We will have plenty of goodies to bring home to your babies!

It has been just over a week since the fire. Can I just say I am so blessed to have such a dear friend and her son safe from a terrible tragedy. Hoping to salvage what ever we can, I was cleaning a filter off their a/c window unit that was in the room furthest from the fire. I am amazed any animals survived with the amount of smoke/soot on the filter.

All of the ratties, guinea pig couple, bunny & reptiles that survived are getting lots of love in their new homes. The largest portion of the rescue happened on Friday. PTDR Painted Rattery in Klamath Falls came up to take what we couldn't find immediate homes for. They are giving all the ratties lots of TLC keeping a few of CRUS lines going for when Celtic Rattery can get back on their feet after the fire.

We have an adorable small litter of 6 here. She let me name the theme. MeetThe Phantom of the Opera Litter. We will be keeping two of the rex babies (CRUS Phantom and CRUS Christine) to add to our lines. There is one Downunder rex boy she is going to keep here as well for her future lines. She had to choose who could stay here in WA and who to let go with limited space. The answer was simple - NOT! We made sure to keep her first rescue girlChocolate Vanilla- who adopted her son as her human. There are also a few that she has from our lines that have come back to our home for a while. Here isthe albumI set up for those wanting to follow their story. We took a couple boys to be neutered since they will no longer be breeders and can live with her girls.

Overall, I can say that I am still in awe of how wonderful the Rat Community is. I also love small town life and the support we can get here. She has a free storage rental until Dec 1st, for the stuff that is salvageable and for future things given to them to help start over.

We helped set up a gofundme page. If you feel the lead please consider giving to this family as they are going to have to start completely over.